Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management

This report describes basic results of BalticSurvey – a project about conducting a survey in the nine littoral countries of the Baltic Sea, i.e. Denmark (DK), Estonia (EE), Finland (FI), Germany (DE), Latvia (LV), Lithuania (LT), Poland (PL), Russia (RU) and Sweden (SE). BalticSurvey has elicited information on how the general public in these countries uses the sea, and what attitudes people in these countries have towards the marine environment and towards various measures for improving the environment.BalticSurvey is a part of the BalticSTERN research network. It is also a part of the research program Protection of the Baltic Sea: Benefits, Costs and Policy Instruments (PROBAPS). Funding for carrying out BalticSurvey has been received from the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and the Finnish Advisory Board of Sectoral Research. 

BalticSurvey serves three purposes:

1. To provide new facts on use and attitudes that are of importance in their own respect.

2. To give results that are of help for the design of forthcoming research on the benefits of marine environmental improvements.

3. To collect data that might allow the application of the travel cost method for estimating recreational values.

The BalticSurvey work has consisted of the following phases:

1. Initial planning (August–September 2009), including the establishment of a consortium coordinated by Enveco Environmental Economics Consultancy Ltd. (SE) in partnership with Berlin Institute of Technology (DE), National Environmental Research Institute, University of Aarhus (DK), Stockholm Environment Institute Tallinn Centre, Estonian Institute of Sustainable Development (EE), MTT Agrifood Research (FI), Center for Environmental Policy (LT), Baltic International Centre for Economic Policy Studies (LV), Warsaw Ecological Economics Center, University of Warsaw (PL) and Centre for Economic and Financial Research at New Economic School (RU).

2. Selection of survey company (September–November 2009). Synovate Sweden AB was chosen as the executor of the survey.

3. Preparation of a questionnaire (October 2009–April 2010), including translations of a master copy in English to twelve different language versions.

4. Data collection (April–June 2010) executed by Synovate. In total, about 9 500 interviews were carried out in the nine Baltic Sea countries.

5. Data analysis and reporting, which is the current phase. Basic results are presented in this report. In-depth analyses and further reporting are planned for the period of 1 September–31 December 2010.

Telephone interviews were used as the data collection mode in all countries except EE, LT and LV, in which face-to-face interviews were used. The questionnaire that was used in all interviews consisted of the following parts:

•     Introduction to what the survey is about and a definition of “theBaltic Sea”.

•     Questions about respondents’ connection to and general use of thesea, including place of living (Q1–Q7).

•     Questions about one particular visit to the sea (Q8–Q19). (Datarelated to these questions are subject to in-depth analyses and results are not included in this report).

•     Attitude questions related to the status of the marine environment,potential problems in the sea, actors that can take actions for improving the marine environment and payment modes for funding actions (Q20–Q26).

•     Questions about age, gender, education, household size, number ofchildren in the household and income (Q27–Q32).

In all the nine Baltic Sea countries except Russia, random sampling of the adult national population was applied. The sample size allowed about 1000 interviews in each country. For Russia, due to its large population and wide geographical extent, it was decided to make a separate sample for the population living in the two Russian regions situated closest to the Baltic Sea, i.e. the coastal regions of St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad (RU-c). Results from this sample were judged to be reasonably comparable to the national samples of the other countries. The sampling was made with a focus on the urban population of St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad and 1000 interviews were carried out. For having a chance of obtaining indications on use and attitudes also in the rest of Russia, 500 interviews were carried out among the population in a number of cities situated in other parts of Russia (RU-r).

Comparisons with national statistics revealed that in most countries, there was an overrepresentation of females and of relatively old respondents. In order to achieve an improved representativity of the results, weighting were therefore applied with respect to gender and age. The results presented in the report are based on weighted data, if not otherwise stated.

BalticSurvey has resulted in a data set which provides completely new and comparable insights in how people in the Baltic Sea countries use the sea and what attitudes they have towards marine environmental issues. Insights about the present use and concerns of the general public are likely to be useful for politicians and other environmental policy-makers. Some general findings are the following:

•     The data indicate how often people visit the Baltic Sea for recreationalpurposes, and what they do when they visit the sea. The most frequent visitors are found in DK, FI and SE. On average, the respondents in these countries spent at least some leisure time at the Baltic Sea on 22–35 days of the 180 days in the period of April–September 2009.

• BalticSurvey – a study in the Baltic Sea countries of public attitudes and use of the sea9For DE, EE, LT, LV, PL and RU-c, the corresponding interval was 9–19 days. Being at the beach or seashore for walking, sunbathing and the like, and swimming were the most frequent activities.

•     As to attitudes, the following are examples of main findings:

– 37–47 % of respondents in PL, DE and LT tended to agree with the statement “I am worried about the Baltic Sea environment”. 53–77 % tended to agree in DK, LV, SE, EE, RU-c and FI.

– In all countries except PL and SE, a majority tended to disagree that they personally affect the Baltic Sea environment.

– In PL and SE, a majority tended to agree with the statement “I can myself play a role in improving the Baltic Sea environment”. In the other countries, 17–37 % tended to agree.

– “Litter” is a marine issue that was regarded by a majority of the respondents in all countries as a rather big or very big problem in the Baltic Sea. The same is true in at least seven of the nine countries for “damage to flora and fauna in the sea”, “heavy metals and other hazardous substances”, “small everyday oil leakages”, “possibility of major oil spill” and “algal blooms”. In general, “gas pipelines lying at the sea bottom”, “open sea water quality” and, in particular, “offshore wind turbines” tended to be viewed as less problematic in most countries.

– In all countries, a majority tended to view it as necessary that the own country’s wastewater treatment plants, professional fishermen,industry, sea transports and ports take actions to improve the Baltic Sea environment. A majority in DK, EE, FI, LT, PL, RU-c and SE thought it is necessary that their own country’s farmerstake actions.

– A majority of the respondents in all countries considered increased charges on pollution emissions for individuals and enterprises to be an acceptable way of funding actions to improve the Baltic Sea environment. There is thus widespread support for the Polluter Pays Principle. Increases in taxes or water bills are not popular, though people are in general less negative towards making payments that are paid by all and are earmarked for funding actions.

BalticSurvey has also illustrated the types of problems that are almost inevitable when the aim is to collect comparable data from different countries. Complex translation issues included the use of a coherent definition of what people are asked to focus on, in this case “the Baltic Sea”. Besides the usual need for pre-tests and a pilot study, this difficulty illustrates why involvement of representatives from all Baltic Sea countries in the project team was necessary for constructing the BalticSurvey questionnaire. Such co-operation is likely to be needed whenever similar international survey projects are carried out.

Another aim of BalticSurvey was to provide input to forthcoming research on the benefits of marine environmental improvements. Using the case of marine eutrophication as an example, such research could be about conducting environmental valuation studies for estimating people’s willingness to pay forreduced eutrophication effects. However, choosing a focus for valuation implies that other marine issues that people might care for are excluded. BalticSurvey has indicated what marine issues are perceived as problems among the general public in the different countries and therefore more is now known about what would be left out if a particular focus is chosen in valuation studies.